Coders are known and utilized in the bottling industry to imprint labels that are affixed to bottles. Typically, laser coders or ink jet coders are used to imprint information specific to the bottles on which the labels are applied. Such information may include, for example, the particular bottling date (i.e., the “born-on” date) of the beverage contained in the bottle. The coder may be positioned in a bottling machine such that labels are imprinted before being applied to the bottles, or the coder may be positioned in the bottling machine such that the labels are imprinted after they are applied to the bottles. In such an application where labels are imprinted before they are applied to the bottles, the coder is typically positioned with a labeler assembly, which typically singulates labels from a stack of labels.
Both the coder and the labeler assembly are typically supported on a machine surface, which is the top surface of the bottling machine, and which is elevated from a floor on which the entire bottling machine is situated. The coder is typically mounted to an adjustment mechanism that permits adjustment of the coder with respect to the labels to be imprinted. The adjustment mechanism, in turn, is typically mounted to a base situated on the machine surface.
During operation of the bottling machine, the lens of a laser coder may become contaminated, thus necessitating access to the lens for cleaning. To gain access to the lens of the laser coder for cleaning, a labor-intensive process must be performed, including disconnecting or unbolting the base of the laser coder from the base of the labeler assembly and sliding or lifting the base of the laser coder and the laser coder away from the labeler assembly. This process is typically complicated and lengthy, thus necessitating a relatively large amount of downtime.
In addition, the base of the laser coder typically occupies a relatively large amount of space on the machine floor. As a result, it is usually difficult to gain access to portions of the machine floor beneath and/or around the base of the laser coder when it is desired to clean the machine floor (e.g., after spillage of the beverage contained in the bottles).